'Home cinema' with active monitors

[ramthelinefeed]

Not sure if this is the right room to ask this one,
and this may have been asked before...

Like many SoS readers, I have a home studio set up with a pair of active monitors fed with balanced signals from small desk and/or PC soundcard.

And I have a 'home cinema' set up round my telly in another room - with an 'A/V receiver' connected between the telly and disc players via HDMI cables, and to a motley collection of passive speakers via speaker cable (7.1/DubblyAtmos, since you ask!)

I have often wondered (not least when I'm moving house and setting things up in new rooms) if the home cinema side of things could be done with active speakers. But there rarely seems to be any straightforward way to connect studio-quality active monitors to domestic 'A/V receiver' units.

Have any SoS readers tried to construct such a thing?

[resistorman]

I use iLoud Micro monitors sitting on a shelf suspended from my TV’s mounting bracket sort of like a sound bar. They’re plugged directly into the TV analog output right now, but I’ve ordered an IR controlled preamp kit. They sound fantastic.

[Drew Stephenson]

20-odd years ago you used to be able to buy home cinema processors as well as receivers. Frequently these were designed to integrate into an existing stereo set up so would just do the decoding and provide the amplifiers for the rear and center speakers. Some would, as far as I recall, offer you a full set of 5.1 line outs on RCA.
I have no idea if such a thing is still available, but if there is, Yamaha probably make it.

[ramthelinefeed]

yeah I guess that's the thing really - if there's "A/V receivers" on the market with line outs that would be the end of the matter.

I believe I had a BluRay player with 5.1's worth of phono line-outs at one point!

[Hugh Robjohns]

https://bryston.com/preamps/sp3/

[ramthelinefeed]

https://bryston.com/preamps/sp3/

Ah now that seems quite the thing - but of course I'd the the https://bryston.com/preamps/sp4/ model with Dubbly Atmos.

Am scared to look up what the price is...

[ramthelinefeed]

£18½ grand for a Bryston SP4 from https://www.analogueseduction.net/search/for/bryston/

Bung in a 7.1's worth of Genelecs and you're laughing, I guess

[Hugh Robjohns]

I didn't say it was affordable.... But it does illustrate that there are solutions to your desires...

[ramthelinefeed]

How comes it costs 10 times as much for a piece of kit that has a balanced line out instead of a speaker level out, though? Surely that means it is doing *less* amplification than a consumer AV receiver?

[Hugh Robjohns]

It does a lot more than most cheaper equivalents, it does it a lot better, its far better engineered with far better specs, and it has a 20 year warranty....

[Stratman57]

You are quite possibly missing an important point here, if you have a 5.1, or 7.1 surround system using powered speakers, then you have to have 6 or 8 power points to plug in your active speakers, so instead of having just cheap speaker cables, you now have maybe balanced line cables plus the associated mains feed for each channel.

My 85 watts per channel Yamaha a595a amp is still providing great surround sound, even without the subwoofer. So much so that the next door neighbours are complaining about the noise when I'm watching Blu-rays or streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney + which do full 5.1 surround sound and it's associated dynamic range.

Regards, Simon.

[Guest]

£18½ grand for a Bryston SP4 from https://www.analogueseduction.net/search/for/bryston/

Bung in a 7.1's worth of Genelecs and you're laughing, I guess

I have used Bryston SP4, On the audio side, it decodes everything, providing amazing flexibility even for multi-amped speakers and numerous subwoofers, and uses Dirac Live to create remarkable sound coherence. On the video side, HDMI delivered more than it promised (in my configuration, it passed Dolby Vision) and was as dependable as mass-market hardware.

[The Red Bladder]

We have the usual projector and screen that descends from the ceiling from out of the bass traps and a Genelec 7.1 system set into the traps. This is fed from a Soundcraft 24:10 'Delta' mixer that gets its signals from a Panasonic DP-UP820 Blu-Ray player with discrete 7.1 RCA analogue outputs, as well as from the 7.1 soundcards in the video workstation.

The little Genelecs and the twin woofers were about £500 each. The desk was an eBay buy for a few hundred and the Blu-Ray player was about £100 on eBay. So my wild guess is about £7k for the lot (not counting rebuilding work and the bonkers workstation from Scan) - and a great deal of work wiring the whole place up and making the bass traps.

[The Elf]

It's a long time since I had the need for this, but...

Isn't there something in VLC that permits mapping of multiple channels to the outputs of an audio interface?

[ef37a]

i have a similar but smaller problem looming in the future. I want to use some really good active monitors* for a home music system but can find nothing in the way of a pre-amp with balanced outputs.
My first idea was to buy a modest integrated hi fi amp and just fit some of the modules Hugh reviewed a while ago, picking the audio just post VC. Problem. Modern amps all seem to be equipped with Blue Teeth but no phono RIAA inputs and I would like to integrate my Rega Planar TT into the setup. I might have to buy an old amp off the Bay?

*I have set the chest pump on the PMC Result 6 but the flexible friend has has a serious bashing this year so I might have to lower my expectations. Has anyone heard the Sixes alongside anything nearly as good but half the price? (well, I can dream innit!)

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

...can find nothing in the way of a pre-amp with balanced outputs.

Only the high-end hi-fi people and pro gear will offer balanced outputs. But the Result 6s will be quite happy with unbalanced inputs in a domestic situation.

Modern amps all seem to be equipped with Blue Teeth but no phono RIAA inputs and I would like to integrate my Rega Planar TT into the setup.

There are plenty of affordable stand-alone phono preamps that you can use to bridge the gap between phono pickup and line input. The Rega Fono MM for example (£200).

[ef37a]

Stuff that! I am not paying 200 sovs for a few transistors and caps to transcribe my old LP collection! I do not intend to ever buy new vinyl.

Re the balanced lines, The run from amp to speakers could well be over 5mtr and avoiding mains wiring quite tricky so a few quid for the modules is no problem.

Dave.

[Wonks]

*I have set the chest pump on the PMC Result 6 but the flexible friend has has a serious bashing this year so I might have to lower my expectations. Has anyone heard the Sixes alongside anything nearly as good but half the price? .

A single PMC Result 6 and listen in mono?

[ef37a]

*I have set the chest pump on the PMC Result 6 but the flexible friend has has a serious bashing this year so I might have to lower my expectations. Has anyone heard the Sixes alongside anything nearly as good but half the price? .

A single PMC Result 6 and listen in mono?

Leave it out! I get almost nothing past 2kHz these days but can still enjoy stereo!

Dave.